Starting anew can be both daunting yet inspiring, and that's precisely the case with my current relationship to cryptocurrency investments. A recent setback left me starting over almost entirely from scratch, but it also has given me a fresh perspective on the vast array of digital assets that are out there.

As I shake off the dust to rebuild my crypto investments, I've zeroed in on three digital currencies that strike me as particularly valuable in the long run. Lucky for me -- and perhaps you, too -- these cryptos are currently trading at enticingly reasonable prices. So let me walk you through why Bitcoin (BTC 1.33%), Ethereum (ETH 5.80%), and Polkadot (DOT 3.11%) are topping my buy list. These are the digital tokens I'll grab first, long before putting my hard-earned cash back to work in any other cryptocurrencies.

These coins were built for real-world use

The digital currencies in my sights aren't just speculative tokens but have been designed with tangible, real-world use cases in mind. Without that quality, you can count me out. It's a deal-breaker.

  • Bitcoin, often referred to as "digital gold," serves as a store of value and has increasingly been adopted as a payment method by various businesses.
  • Ethereum isn't just a cryptocurrency but a flexible and extensible platform for executing smart contracts. This innovative quirk makes Ethereum an essential building block for many blockchain-based applications.
  • Polkadot, designed for interoperability among different blockchains, holds immense potential in connecting different ecosystems and enabling cross-chain transfers of any type of data or asset. If that sounds helpful to the Web3 vision, where central data hubs and social media platforms make way for people connecting directly to each other, you're on the right track. This token was designed by the Web3 foundation to make the digital wheels of the next-generation digital environment turn smoothly.

Developers are hard at work building apps and services that make use of Polkadot's and Ethereum's programmable smarts. Again, the Web3 revolution won't happen overnight, and nobody has come up with a killer app for crypto-based decentralized finance yet. But I'm convinced that these game-changing boosts are coming within the next year or two.

Bargain-bin values? Yes, please!

Then there's the matter of value. It's easy to get caught up in the hype of high-flying cryptocurrencies with astronomical prices, but I prefer to take a more grounded approach. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Polkadot are trading at levels that I believe offer tremendous long-term value. Boring, I know, but that's the best way to build and nourish an investment portfolio for the long run.

I'm not in a rush to grab these foundational cryptocurrencies, by the way. Regulators and institutional investors are warming up to the potential value in secure, low-cost transactions, but it takes time to flip those switches. Still, July 2023 looks like a great time to get started.

Bitcoin has pulled back 56% from its all-time highs, offering a more affordable entry point. Ethereum, while having had a strong run in the first half of 2023, still trades 62% below its peak value. And Polkadot, despite its potential, has yet to fully capture the market's attention, parking its token price 91% below the highs of November 2021.

The crypto market is notoriously unpredictable, but my target cryptos have long-planned events coming up in 2024 that could fuel the next broad-based market recovery and long-term gains.

  • Bitcoin has the "halvening," where the rewards for mining new coins are cut in half every four years or so, currently scheduled for late April 2024.
  • Ethereum is pre-testing several technology updates that will boost the platform's security, speed up its transaction processing, and set the stage for even more ambitious improvements in the years ahead.
  • Polkadot's progress is more fluid, as the development depends on people adopting the Web3 framework on a global scale. That said, the Web3 Foundation's researchers are hammering away at scalability improvements, settling the ideal number of feature-laden parachains, and how those parachains can interact in a foolproof and future-proof way.

Any or all of these projects could send the crypto market skyrocketing again. I'd like to get my ducks in a row before that happens, but I'm also prepared to wait a year or two before the sparks start to fly.

The kids will probably use these specific cryptocurrencies in 20 years

Looking ahead, I believe these cryptocurrencies have the potential to still be around and relevant two decades from now. In fact, they may very well become a standard part of the global economy long before then. The current prices of the future's digital gold, the leading smart contracts platform, and the lifeblood of Web3 might be the early-bird opportunity for those with an eye on the horizon.

So I don't really mind pushing the reset button on my crypto portfolio right now. The Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Polkadot I buy this summer should serve me well for many years to come.